Wal-Mart claimed today that the much-hyped Black Friday protests at the non-union retail giant fizzled out, with only 50 associates – their term for employees – taking part. The United Food and Commercial Workers union, which organized the protests, disputed that figure though. It said “hundreds and hundreds” joined in at events across the country. The Washington Examiner could not find an independent estimate for the protests.

Even assuming the UFCW figure is correct, that is pretty small given that Wal-Mart is the nation’s largest employer, with 1.4 million people working at its stores. Wal-Mart also claimed at least 10 million transactions since its stores opened late Thursday, which would make 2012 its best Black Friday ever.

The UFCW, whose members mainly work for Wal-Mart’s competitors, has long battled the retail giant.

Related…Ulysses Arn went out to interview the protesters in Rockford, Illinois today.
The protesters were just as ignorant as you would imagine.

CV1 commented:

Exile1981 commented:

I’ve seen video on several sites that seems to imply that the vast majority of the people involved in the protests where union members and therefore not Walmart employees. Since the one video the protestors told the reporter they were not allowed to talk to the media only the organizers in the yellow shirts (who were union members and therefore not employees) could talk to the media. So there is really no way to independently know how many were walmart associates. Of course Walmart likely knows how many no-showed for work but that number could be way different from the 50 they quoted.

paul52 commented:

I’ve been ‘forced’ into UFCW twice as a term of employment. They are as useless at teats on a boar hog. Parasites… all of ‘em. I suggest UFCW open their own chain, put up all the venture capital, take all the risks, and pay their employees a minimum of $25/hour…. oh, and turn a profit.

Highlander commented:

Hopefully, Wal-mart fired and replaced each and every one of the losers who didn’t show up for work. Intentionally calling off on the busiest day of the year is completely unforgivable. No employee who does something that they know is going to anger and inconvenience the customers and damage the business’s reputation deserves to keep their job. Plus, leaving the store short-handed like that demonstrates a complete lack of respect for their coworkers.

Highlander commented:

Patty, money isn’t necessary to issue food stamps. They just issue them. There is no budget, and no accountability in government today. This is just one more way that our dollars are being devalued and wealth is being redistributed. As a result, as each day goes by, the price of everything we buy is going up, stripping the wealth out of the hands of the people who actually have real money to spend, and shifting it into the hands of the growing masses of parasitic people who get welfare checks, food stamps, and other government issued benefits …

What our “leaders” are doing to this country is, to put it bluntly, outrageous.

President Barack Obama will be the first president in this great country
who will not have passed a budget in his first term of office. He submitted
a budget that was defeated by a vote of 97-0. Not a single Democrat or
Republican voted for it.

In his first two years in office, instead of focusing on the economy,
he passed the stimulus bill (which did not work because he pushed
for clean energy), and the Affordable Healthcare Act (which had to
go to the U.S. Supreme Court because it was so controversial). In
fact, we had to wait until it was passed before we saw what was
in it.

In 2010, the Republicans won a majority in the House, and they have
submitted 33 budget bills that have been shelved by the Democrat-
controlled Senate. The bills were not allowed for discussion or for a
vote. The president refuses to negotiate with the Republicans.

I would like to say that all voters need to ask any person running
for public office how the candidates plan on breaking this deadlock
in Washington, D.C. If they can’t answer that question, they don’t
deserve our vote.